BKT thrives as lone Korean wastewater treatment provider in US

South Korean water treatment provider Bukang Tech(BKT) on Wednesday said it earned a contract to build a wastewater treatment facility in the US state of Georgia from Absolics, a maker of semiconductor glass substrate under SKC. The turnkey deal for the project covers design to procurement, execution, construction and trial operations. 

As the only Korean water treatment company active in the US market, BKT last year won a wastewater treatment project from Korean food giant Pulmuone for a tofu factory near Los Angeles in Fullerton, California,.

BKT founder Kim Dong-woo said, "We've had a surge of inquiries about orders for wastewater treatment facilities as Korean corporations pursue plant construction in the US due to the Biden administration's policy toward the purchase of domestically made goods, or 'Buy American.'"

Such corporations are insisting on Korean-made water treatment providers because of the 'learning effect' for American businesses, with many problems in cost billing or conflict arising after such projects were commissioned.

BKT is the Korean market leader in treatment of livestock manure with a 70% share and is the world's only company to have all three technologies -- biogas output, sludge reduction and treatment of high-nitrogen wastewater – needed for organic waste treatment such as sewage sludge. In Korea, it has won contracts for sewage treatment plants in Seoul, Busan and Daejeon.

Entering the US market in 2008, the company for 15 years has conducted dozens of projects to streamline sewage treatment plants and provide related consulting. It is close to winning yet another similar project in the US in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In a world first, BKT has invented a technology that drastically reduces the area of a sewage treatment plant and utilizes the site for a data center and the sewage as cooling water.

Write to Dae-Kyu Ahn at powerzanic@hankyung.com